At long last, as the ‘official’ owners of Sea Cloud, we left Brindisi Marina, our home for nearly a month and headed for north for Croatia.

Once again, what little wind we had was “on the nose” so after a night of motoring we arrived in Cavtat, just south of Dubrovnik, a very efficient and painless place to check in to Croatia.

A great time of year to be here, we were the only boat in large Tiha Bay behind Cavtat. With no wind predicted and no prospect of actually sailing anywhere, Ian would have been very happy to stay here, but was talked into motoring north to Lopud Island – the first leg of our route retracing our favourite spots from 2009.

Finally some wind! After living on Sea Cloud for nearly a month, this is the first time we could actually sail her! Pleasing to see she can sail close hauled doing 5knots in 5-8kts of wind. Not earth shattering stuff – but a start at last! Lovely!

Return visit to a favourite island of Miljet for a couple of very pleasant days walking and cycling.

Brief (unavoidable) stop in the busy (and expensive) ACI Marina, Korcula.

With good NW winds predicted for Sunday, we sailed across to our favourite island, Lastovo almost midway between Italy and Croatia

Lastovo would be our check out port and jumping off spot for the passage to Greece, via Brindisi. We were very happy to secure our favourite secluded spot which had many fond memories from our 09 visit to Lastovo.  With the great opportunity of strong NW winds predicted, and faced with the 290Nm passage back to Greece, we checked out of Ubli early.

 Fantastic to finally have a good breeze! Sea Cloud loped along comfortably on a broad reach in the 19-26knots of breeze at over 8kts. The breeze lasted all the way to Brindisi – with Sea Cloud occasionally surfing down the (up to 4metre) waves at 9+knots! Not bad for an 18.5ton boat.

 Approaching Brindisi at dawn with winds predicted to continue, we decided to take advantage of the great conditions and just kept going – another wonderful day sailing at in 16-19knots of breeze pushed us quickly south towards Greece. After a 48 hr (290 Nm) passage we arrived early morning in Gaios on the Ionian Island of Paxos (note the very small Australian ensign amidst the predominantly British flags). Port authorities pretty casual and, having run out of the correct forms suggest we postpone the process till arrival in Lefkas – Welcome to Greece! After a successful first Med-moor in Sea Cloud, we settled in amongst the mainly British yachts for a few days of R&R and a toast to our wonderful first 2 weeks as owners of Sea Cloud.